That’s where Aimee and I found ourselves Sunday afternoon in Northampton, waiting to cross King Street and head into downtown. I was pleased to stand there and do nothing, as Aimee insisted on faking a phone call in order to distract herself from celebrity-proximity-embarassment. I didn’t do the unthinkable and actually talk to them, but it was fun to have another small-town Wilco sighting, and as Aimee said, nice to see they hang out like they’re on a field trip together when they don’t really have to.
Our Wilco/Wedding Weekend began with a wedding in Newton on Saturday afternoon, with the reception in Cambridge, high above the Charles in the Hyatt Hotel. The view was great, and the reception pleasant; we didn’t know a lot of people (four, total, including the bride and groom), and there wasn’t any dancing, but it was nice to be there. Afterwards, we headed out to Waltham to see Wilco play a somewhat unexpected show at Brandeis, in the Shapiro Gym. Unexpected, because I don’t think it was announced at the same time the rest of the area shows were, and we had already made our decision to see them at the Calvin in Northampton as opposed to the Wang Center here in Boston. But with a small college show a few minutes away, we couldn’t pass it up, so we found ourselves among a few thousand Brandeis students, standing under a retracted basketball hoop, waiting for Wilco at eight o’clock on Saturday night.
Little did we know, we’d have to suffer through the Fiery Furnaces first; an appropriate name, for the way it made us feel halfway through their interminable set. Imagine no song breaks, no melodies, no singing, really, and no personality. The only entertaining thing about them was their amazing drummer, who looked like he was auditioning for Dokken or Europe or Van Halen, with his highly choreographed cymbal-taps, his elaborate facial expressions, and the echt-80s upraised drumstick twirl. Watching him was the only way we got through the set.
The new Wilco, with the addition of Messrs. Cline and Sansone, sounded great, as we know from seeing them at the Newport Folk Festival in August. Seeing them in a smaller venue, indoors, made it clear how great, though. The songs from the new album, almost all of which they played in this show, really flourished live; it just sounded as though it was meant to be played live. They mixed in a few songs from other albums, like “A Shot in the Arm” and a beautiful rendition of “In A Future Age,” and played a one-song encore of “Spiders (Kidsmoke).” The second encore featured more interesting material, but surprisingly, no “California Stars” or “Passenger Side.” Jeff’s demeanor throughout was a lot more animated and engaged than I’ve really seen him before, joking, smiling, and even doing some little dances on stage. He’s no Bono, but for him, it was a big change. They ended the show with an election-season rant, singing “Christ for President” and “Be Not So Fearful,” encouragement as we go to the polls. 
Sunday morning, I ran the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K, my fourth year doing it, and I tried to go into it as a regular three mile run as opposed to an actual race. I ended up doing something in between holding back and letting go, and had a good, harmless race.
The rest of the afternoon we spent in Amherst, checking out the new buildings and the stuff under construction on campus (plus the wacky Pagan festival on the Common), and then on to Northampton. After a nice afternoon wandering Main Street (and running into Wilco), we met Abby and Mark for dinner, fully aware that we should stay as far away from the Fiery Furnaces as we could. We headed in with about five merciful minutes left in their set, just enough time to get a sense of how bad they were, and then enjoyed another great Wilco set.
The sound setup and acoustics were much better this time around, and the setlist was a little more diverse: an incredible “Via Chicago,” second song in the set, as well as “Sunken Treasure.” We could do this every night…
